Why do leftists claim to be anti-monopoly while favoring expanding the biggest monopoly?
Brad asked:
The biggest monopoly obviously is the organization called government that (at the bare minimum) claims a monopoly on defense and which funds itself by taking money from people without their consent (through extortion, which it refers to as taxation). This entity is also the same one that is the only entity capable of creating a monopoly (which it can do by subsidizing a business, outlawing competition to a favored business, or granting that business a “right” to forms of imaginary “property” such as copyright and patents). The government has also invented the legal fiction of a corporation so that some businesses can escape liability for their debts and subsidized the creation of businesses that produce the weapons used by governments to kill innocent foreigners and even innocent people within their own territory.
The biggest monopoly obviously is the organization called government that (at the bare minimum) claims a monopoly on defense and which funds itself by taking money from people without their consent (through extortion, which it refers to as taxation). This entity is also the same one that is the only entity capable of creating a monopoly (which it can do by subsidizing a business, outlawing competition to a favored business, or granting that business a “right” to forms of imaginary “property” such as copyright and patents). The government has also invented the legal fiction of a corporation so that some businesses can escape liability for their debts and subsidized the creation of businesses that produce the weapons used by governments to kill innocent foreigners and even innocent people within their own territory.
How is it that leftists hold to an anti-monopoly, anti-war, anti-corporate position while supporting expanding the very entity that creates those problems? Besides that, why do leftists want the government to redistribute wealth to the poor when the government is the very entity that creates large levels of income inequality by granting special privileges and welfare checks and through heavy taxes on everybody, including a structure that penalizes people who try to increase how much money they earn (it is no wonder that the likes of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are strong supporters of “progressive” taxation)?
Mark
August 29th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
You have cause and effect reversed.
“Leftists” are not in favour of expanding the government.
They are in favour of expanding the things that can be done for the people of your country to make their lives easier, richer and safer.
If you can demonstrate a way for business to do this better, they’re all ears – nobody thinks the government is efficient at doing anything.
But making a few industries like the military suppliers and Hathaway filthy rich while ordinary Americans go begging for food, jobs and medical care benefits nobody but the respective shareholders, who are likely rich enough already.
And that’s what the GOP has been doing.
August 31st, 2008 at 3:05 pm
It is time for another Tea Party if you know what I mean. I am also frustrated with the taxation without representation. Oh both sides say they represent us but in fact they represent their favorite special interest group.
Eric helping others by hurting me is not only wrong it is illegal. The government is not granted that right by the constitution. Nowhere in that forgotten document does it give the government the right to take my property (money is property)for any project that they deam worthy. They are allowed to take tax for defense, public safety, and infrastructure but not to give to people who have no ambition, are here illegally, or are in Africa suffering from AIDS.
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Good points and good question. It is a fundamental viewpoint shift from what is nowadays so common that it isn’t exclusive to leftists or any “ist”. People who don’t buy into the Big Government scam really need a new denomination other than “right wing” or “conservative”, because those titles have been pretty well hijacked by corporate fascists, to the point that “libertarian” almost equates to “fringe element,” at least as portrayed by the corporate media propaganda machine.
Liberty and personal responsibility — the great forgotten concepts of the uber-state.